


A New York Tale

by SmoakScreen (midwestwind)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - New York, Angst, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff, Prompt Fic, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-03-17 04:48:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3515909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midwestwind/pseuds/SmoakScreen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You two are dancing in a snow globe round and round</i>
  <br/>
  <i>And he keeps the picture of you in his office downtown</i>
</p><p>"Suddenly her sleep mussed hair and the bags she’s sure are under her eyes trouble her even more and she’s all too aware of the way the fluorescents wash her pale skin out.<br/>Of course, he looks like some Greek fucking God or something and she hates him."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A New York Tale

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know exactly how this show happened to me or how I've gotten to the point where I can't write for anything else but my evil friend Ipek threw Bellamy/Clarke + You Are In Love out there and it wouldn't go away. And, yeah, I'm staying in my beautiful modern au worlds where no one has to die and canon doesn't have to affect me lalala! Anyway, yeah, it's a super lame title but I was tired of using song lyrics.
> 
> Also, this story jumps back and forth between the present and past flashbacks. There's no real order to the flashbacks, they sort of jump around to fit where Clarke's head is at. If that's gonna drive you crazy or confuse you, you might not enjoy this sorry!!

Clarke hates airports. She doesn’t hate flying – finds it weirdly relaxing, actually – but airports themselves are definitely her least favorite part of traveling. And it’s definitely _not_ because everyone around her is hugging and reuniting with loved ones while hers is nowhere to be seen. Clarke sighs and checks the time again before continuing searching for Octavia in the crowd.

Her heart jumps when it lands on an entirely different mop of brown hair.

She’s debating whether he could possibly be there for her or not when he spots her, that familiar smirk crossing his features. Suddenly her sleep mussed hair and the bags she’s sure are under her eyes trouble her even more and she’s all too aware of the way the fluorescents wash her pale skin out.

Of course, _he_ looks like some Greek fucking God or something and she _hates_ him.

“Bellamy,” she breathes to herself, letting herself say his name for the first time in months. It feels oddly more like coming home than her plane touching down at JFK. She’s so stunned by his presence – and the way she’s reacting to it – that he has to come to her when it becomes clear she isn’t going to move any time soon. Suddenly he’s right in front of her and he looks exactly the same and somehow completely different from the last time she saw him. Her chest aches at the memory and she pushes it aside.

“Are you here for me?” She asks when she finds her voice and he raises an amused eyebrow.

“Should I have brought a name card? ‘Princess’?” She actually _growls_ a little at the nickname and shoves past him, heading for the exit. It doesn’t occur to her he might drive a different car than she remembers but he chuckles and falls into step behind her, tugging one of her bags off her shoulder without asking permission. She only lets him because it was the heavy one and her shoulder was getting sore.

It’s a long and quiet walk through the terminal to the parking garage. The elevator dings open at the garage and she trails after him as he leads the way.

“You could have just picked me up out front, you know,” she tells him matter-of-factly when she realizes the trek to wherever he’s left his car is going to take longer than she’d planned.

“O told me she’d told you she’d wait inside the airport,” he explains, pulling out a key fob that definitely does not belong to his old beat up truck and clicking the lock button, listening for the sound of his car. She glares at the back of his head when he hears it and suddenly changes direction.

“Why did Octavia send you?” She watches his shoulders shift up and down in a shrug.

“Why does she do anything?” Yeah, that’s fair. Clarke adjusts her bag and crosses her arms over her chest as she follows him through the maze of cars. She frowns when he stops at an unfamiliar sleek black car and pops the trunk, settling her bag inside and reaching for the one she’s still holding. She doesn’t break out of her confusion – and she’ll blame the nine hour flight for all her freezing – until he reaches for the bag, his hand wrapping around the strap on her shoulder and pressing against the thin cotton of her shirt. She relinquishes the bag but it’s a few more seconds before she speaks.

“You got rid of your truck,” she comments as he closes the trunk and she doesn’t mean for it to sound quite so _pouty_. He chuckles and shakes his head which just makes her frown more.

“Astute as ever,” he jokes and it is completely unfair. Why does he get to act like it hasn’t been over a year since they last saw each other and even longer since they last spoke? Why does he get to fall back into the routine while she’s left feeling annoyed and perturbed by his presence? She huffs a sigh and slides into the unfamiliar car before he has a chance to open her door for her. She doesn’t catch the way his shoulders sag slightly once she’s out of sight, too caught up in her own memories.

“ _Watch the road,” Clarke says trying her best to sound authoritative but unable to fight the smile on her face back completely._

“ _I am,” Bellamy counters and she’ll never understand how a person’s voice can sound like a smirk but he manages it. There’s something light there too, affectionate. Her smile grows._

“ _The hole you’re burning into the side of my face says differently.” He chuckles and she can sense the shift as his eyes return to the road but she snakes her hand over the console, finds his where it rests. The silence washes over them and she watches him drive, glancing at her intermittently. She doesn’t try to look away when he looks over, unashamed in her staring as he had been moments before. He slows to a stop at a red light, the brake lights from the car in front of them washing the dashboard in a red glow. It reaches up to his face and he looks over again._

“ _What’s up, Clarke?” He asks gently as he squeezes her fingers with his. Clarke looks down at their hands and smiles. She doesn’t think a persons’ voice has ever affected her so much as Bellamy’s – which, she realizes, is extremely weird. But he manages so much with few words, has for as long as she’s known him. Back when she had hated him, he could cut her down with a few words even as she got back up and fought back each time. He’d lower his voice and it’d sound so much like a purr, something primal, and she’d be ready to jump his bones even during their worst verbal sparring matches._

_Then he could speak so gently and be so affectionate with his voice more than his words._

“ _I just had a really good time tonight,” she explains, looking back up as he shoots her one of his rare real smiles._

_And, shit, she’s totally in love with him._

_The thought runs through her mind unbidden but Bellamy misses her frown as he turns back to the road, the light ahead of them switching to green. Clarke doesn’t know what to do with this new information but Bellamy’s voice breaks through before she has any time to process._

“ _So, does this mean my chances for a third date are good?” He asks and Clarke can’t help by smile and the barely masked hope in his voice. Like she’d say no at this point. She hums and pretends to consider it though._

“ _Well, the venue better be promising.” He chuckles, deep and smooth, and she decides she might as well go all in anyway._

“I liked your truck,” she says as he slides into the driver’s seat, pointedly not looking at him as he stares at her for a moment. She realizes she’s unnerved him and almost delights in it. If she didn’t hate so much that they feel this way around each other now.

“Me too,” he admits quietly as the engine turns over and she’s not sure they’re still talking about a truck – if they ever were.

They’re heading back into the city when his phone rings. She glares him down as he answers it and he ignores her, waving a hand vaguely to tell her to be quiet and she opens her mouth to give him a piece of her mind until he greets the person on the other end with the title _Professor_ and, well, she has _some_ decorum. There’s a vague conversation that she can’t put together from the side she’s hearing and he hangs up after only a few moments, sighing.

“Sorry,” he says quietly, “do you mind if I make a quick stop at the University?” She shakes her head and he switches lanes, reading to alter their direction slightly.

“Octavia mentioned you’d found a teaching job,” she admits, not wanting to have to act surprised by the news. It’s better if they don’t pretend that they hadn’t been fishing for information about the other through Octavia. At least, she knew she had been.

“Yeah, it’s,” he shrugs vaguely, “a far cry from the bar, at least.” The comment is too pointed to be casual and Clarke sighs, looking out the window. Anything she can say will only lead to a confrontation and she’s too tired for it.

“I think it’s great,” is her lame reply, eventually. She can feel when Bellamy glances over at her, could always feel his eyes on her even from across a crowded room. It used to be a comfort but now it makes her nervous. He doesn’t say anything as they near the university.

“ _Fucking Christ, Clarke, what if I’m happy?” Bellamy is shouting and Clarke’s never been very good at not rising to the bait when he does. She takes a deep breath and tries to focus on keeping her voice calm._

“ _You’re not, Bellamy,” she counters and he throws his hands up, circling away from her in his pacing._

“ _You can’t tell me how I feel, Clarke!” He stops suddenly, turning back towards her and she knows something bad is coming. She started this but she desperately wants it to be over before they say something stupid. They’re both too stubborn to quit while they’re ahead, though._

“ _I’m not happy or_ you’re _not happy?” Clarke sighs and shakes her head, standing up from her seat on his bed._

“ _This isn’t about_ me _,” she tells him but he shakes his head at her, suddenly in her space and she has to look up at him. His jaw is locked and she knows he’s trying to look hard but his eyes give him away. He looks scared but it isn’t until his next words that she understands why._

“ _Are you sure, Princess?” She closes her eyes for a moment at the sneer and it’s not fair that he can use that as a term of endearment when things are good and a slur when they’re bad. “Are you sure this isn’t about the good doctor not wanting to be dating a lowly bartender?”_

“ _You’re projecting,” she tries and he growls._

“ _Stop fucking talking to me like a patient,” he hisses, his voice suddenly quieter than it’s been since she’d broached the subject. “Just admit it, all right? It’s not my happiness you’re worried about, it’s yours. Well, guess what? If you’re not happy, there’s the door!” He throws his hand out in the direction of the bedroom door and she pointedly doesn’t follow the motion. Instead, she crosses her arms, glaring at him, and takes a step back to drop back down on his bed. He watches her as the mattress shifts underneath her and she can see the fight go out of him._

“ _I’m not going anywhere,” she tells him._

Clarke follows Bellamy across the campus and into his office. It’s pretty standard from what she remembers of visiting professors during her college days. Bookshelves on either side, a large desk backed by a set of windows that bathe the room in natural light. Bellamy heads towards the desk, looking strangely out of place in his t-shirt and jeans, and snags something off of it. He glances up at her and the sunlight brings his freckles to the surface and Clarke realizes she’d nearly forgotten just how handsome he is.

“You mind hanging out here for a minute or two?” He asks. “It shouldn’t take me long.” She shakes her head and he rounds the desk again, passing by her and heading for the door. He disappears around it and she decides to give it a few seconds before she starts looking around. She heads towards the bookshelves first, running her fingers over the spines of old, worn copies she recognizes from where they used to reside haphazardly piled around his apartment. Her eye catches on one, a well-used copy of _Much Ado About Nothing_ , and pulls it out of its spot, turning it over in her hands before finally flipping it open.

The inside is riddled with notes in the margin, most of which are in her own handwriting but are occasionally answered with smart remarks in Bellamy’s scrawl. She smiles down at it, the conversations they’d have between them as they lent books back and forth and scribbled messages and jokes. In one of her bags she’d packed a hardcover copy of _Alice in Wonderland_ covered in notations from Bellamy. She hadn’t been able to read it once in the past year but it had sat on her bedside table every night.

She slides the book back into its spot, resisting the urge to grab a pencil off his desk and leave a note. She circles the desk, dragging her fingertips over the smooth finish of the wood as her eyes scan across the various papers on his desk. A stack of research papers sits in the center with a red pen on top of them. The paper on top has a few red marks and notes in the margins but still an _87%_ written and circled at the top. She wonders if Bellamy is a generous or harsh grader, resists the urge to sit down and read his comments on the work.

Her eyes catch on a photo at the corner of the desk. It’s sandwiched in between a picture of Octavia in her cap and gown from the day she’d graduated high school and one of the Blake siblings that Clarke remembers having taken a few years ago. In the middle, she sees her own smiling face and recognizes the sheets on Bellamy’s bed that make her backdrop. He’s barely in the frame, clearly the one holding the camera while she struggles to hide beneath the covers, her wide grin belying her show of annoyance at the camera. She presses her index finger down on the corner of the frame before giving in and picking it up, holding it gingerly between her fingers. She traces the finger pads of her other hand gently over the bit of Bellamy visible in the picture – bare shoulder covered in freckles, curly brown hair, devilish grin at his own antics or hers.

“ _Clarke.” The whisper permeates through her dreamless sleep, shakes her into near consciousness. “Clarke!” She groans and shifts, tugging the comforter closer to her and pointedly ignoring him. Until his fingers start tracing the line of her spine, stopping to pay specific attention to each vertebrae. She counts them in her head as he traces them, imagines the nerves surrounding them flickering at the contact. None of these thoughts help her to ignore him._

“ _Bellamy,” she groans and she means for it to sound annoyed and reproachful but it comes out more like a moan and she knows she’s already lost the battle. His hands circles around to her stomach, finds each of her ribs beneath her skin and traces the spaces between them. She sighs as he deftly keeps his fingers away from her breasts. She sighs and he chuckles but the heat running through her doesn’t feel like rage._

“ _Bellamy,” she whines, flipping over to face him finally, putting some space between them. “I was sleeping.”_

“ _I know,” he says simply with that stupid fucking smirk. She tries to glare at him but her nerves are on edge and she knows she has a wicked case of bedhead so she doubts the effect is there._

“ _What do you want?” She sighs, reaching up to run a hand futilely through her tangled hair, effectively getting her fingers stuck. Bellamy chuckles again, quieter this time, and reaches forward to gently untangle the hair from around her fingers._

“ _Do you have to ask?” He responds, a cocky smile contrasting with the gentle movements of his hands. The fond glint in his eye and soothing motions on her scalp hardly the moves of a man who just wants to fuck her senseless. Not that she’s against the ‘fuck her senseless’ part._

“ _You’re insatiable.”_

“ _Only for you.” She snorts at that as he retracts his hands, hers now untangled. He places one on her bare hip, rubs small circles with his thumb._

“ _Oh, please, Bellamy. Try to remember how long we’ve known each other. I know that’s not true.” He shakes his head and lifts it to lean forward and press a gentle kiss to the corner of her mouth. She can’t stop herself from following him as he pulls away, pulling him in for a longer kiss._

“ _You think you’re so smart, Princess,” he teases and she nods curtly because, well,_ she is _. He smirks at this and flips her onto her back suddenly, pressing one of his legs between hers as he hovers over her. She wraps one hand around his bicep and brushes his hair out of his eyes with the other._

“ _Seriously, Bellamy, why are we up at,” she glances around for his ancient looking alarm clock, “two forty in the morning?” He’s just staring at her and usually she can take it but this feels different, deeper, somehow and it makes her shift underneath him._

“ _What?” She murmurs and he snaps out of it, shaking his head._

“ _You’re my best friend, Clarke,” he tells her and she smiles. “Did you know that?” She laughs and places one hand at the back of his neck, pulling him down for another kiss._

“ _You’re such a weirdo.”_

Someone clears their throat and Clarke nearly drops the frame, fumbling at the last minute and catching it before it hits the desk. She sets it back in its spot and looks towards the door, expecting to see a smirking or bashful Bellamy try to explain away the presence of the picture on his desk. Instead, a tall brunette with an armful of textbooks is standing awkwardly at the door.

“Sorry, I thought you were Professor Blake,” she explains and Clarke nods.

“It’s all right, you just surprised me. He went to talk to another teacher but he should be back any minute if you’d like to wait,” she tells the girl who nods, still lingering in the doorway. Clarke rounds the desk, not wanting to be caught behind it when Bellamy did come back. It’s obvious this girl is one of Bellamy’s students but Clarke doesn’t know whether she should invite her to sit or just continue their awkward encounter from opposite sides of the room. Before she decides what to do, she hears Bellamy’s voice in the hallway before he appears in the doorway.

“Ms. Underwood,” he greets and Clarke probably shouldn’t be quiet so turned on by professional Bellamy, “what are you doing here? I don’t have office hours right now.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I just saw the door open and thought you might have a minute to talk about the final. Your girlfriend said it would be okay if I waited,” the girl explains and Clarke means to correct her but Bellamy presses on before she has the chance.

“I’m afraid we’re in kind of a hurry but if you want we can schedule a time during office hours this week,” he offers and the girl nods eagerly. Clarke drifts back to the bookshelves as they cross towards the desk, deciding on a time that Bellamy scribbles in an agenda book on his desk. The girl heads out and Bellamy scoops up the stack of research papers and shoves them in his messenger bag while Clarke stares down the copy of _Much Ado About Nothing_. He reaches her before she even notices he’s left his desk.

“Sorry about that. You ready?” She waves off the apology and nods, heading for the door. They’re crossing the campus back towards his car and she can’t stop the words from coming out.

“You know, she was fishing, right?” Bellamy raises an eyebrow at the question. “Your student. She called me your girlfriend to see if you’d correct her.” He seems entirely unaffected by this information and Clarke narrows her eyes, staring at the side of his face.

“You’re gonna leave scorch marks, Princess.” She rolls her eyes and looks away but can’t let the subject drop.

“God, you love it don’t you?” The eyebrow goes up again and Clarke elaborates, though she doubts he doesn’t know what she means. “Being the hot professor they all want to sleep with, you’re loving it!” He shakes his head but she can see the smirk and she’s not sure why this bothers her so much.

“You calling me hot?” Okay, well, that is so not the point.

“You know you’re hot, I know you’re hot, let’s not dwell on the facts, all right?” He chuckles and she wants to slap him. She settles for reaching over and pinching his arm, the smirk falls and he looks over to glower at her. She feels a little smug at having broken his unaffected amusement and smiles the rest of the way back to the car.

“ _Shit,” she hears him hiss as she steps out of his bedroom into the hallway that led to the open floor plan of his apartment, a half wall separating the kitchen and the living room. She tiptoes down the hall, bare legs peeking out from underneath the shirt she’d pilfered from his dresser. He’s in the kitchen, she can tell before she finds him from the background noise of a sizzling pan and the bubbling coffee pot. Clarke sees him long before he notices her and she leans against the wall and just watches him for a while._

“ _Are you creeping back there, Princess?” He asks when he does finally turn and spot her and she shrugs._

“ _What can I say? Watching you cook is like breakfast and a show.” She pushes off the wall and crosses the living room to join him._

“ _Ha ha,” he responds dryly and she grins. “I’ll have you know I am an excellent cook.” She snorts as she takes in the scene around her. Reaching out, she plucks a slice of toast out of the toaster and brandishes it at him._

“ _Tell that to your burnt toast,” she teases and he snatches it from her with a pout, dropping it unceremoniously on a plate on the counter._

“ _Not burnt,” he counters, “well done.” She laughs out loud at that as she turns her back to the counter and pushes herself upwards until she can sit on it, swinging her legs as he continues to scramble eggs in one pan and cook bacon in another. She’s in the middle of forming a comment about ‘a regular Susie Homemaker’ when suddenly he’s in her space, pushing himself between her legs and covering her mouth with his._

“ _That’s my shirt, thief,” he growls against her mouth and she smirks._

“ _Take it back then.” He groans and pulls away, dropping his head onto her shoulder. She raises an eyebrow at the reaction and waits for him to explain, his hands still burning into the skin of her upper thighs._

“ _We can’t. The food really will burn.” As if on cue, the pan with the bacon gives a disconcertingly loud pop and Bellamy pulls back, looking at her seriously._

“ _But this conversation is not over. I don’t want to encourage your criminal behavior,” he tells her and she nods once, trying to match his level of seriousness but unable to keep the corners of her lips from turning up slightly._

“ _Of course not.” She gives him a mock salute and returns to kicking her legs, trying to ignore the heat in her belly. She keeps catching Bellamy’s eyes on her and can’t help but congratulate herself on the good decision to steal one of his shirts. No more than five minutes later she hears him growl ‘fuck it’ before switching the knobs on the stove off and carrying her back to the bedroom._

The memory surprises her as she once again finds herself sliding into his car. The shirt in question is packed at the bottom of one of her bags and she’s been trying desperately to not dwell on the fact that she’d not only packed it in the first place but worn it every chance she got while she was out of the country.

She’s shaken out of it when her phone starts trilling in her pocket. She hits the answer button with a smile and lifts it to her ear.

“Okay, what exactly was more important than seeing me for the first time in almost a year?” She asks instead of a greeting.

“ _Well, hello to you, too,_ ” Octavia’s voice rings across the line and Clarke can imagine the other woman is probably grinning just as widely as her. “ _I was just calling to check that you and Bell haven’t tried to kill each other yet?_ ” Clarke hums, notes that Octavia avoided answering the question and makes a note to press the issue later.

“Not outright yet,” she answers, glancing over towards Bellamy in the driver’s seat. He glances over, smiling affectionately, and Clarke figures he knows who’s on the other line. “Bellamy says hello.” He shakes his head and retrains his attention on the road. She tries not to think about the fact that he doesn’t have to ask directions to her apartment even after all this time.

“ _So, how was the trip? Honestly, don’t sugar coat it because you want it to sound fun_ ,” Octavia demands and Clarke rolls her eyes.

“We talked constantly, Octavia. You know how the trip was.”

“ _Yeesh_ , _that bad, huh_?” Clarke laughs and shakes her head.

“It wasn’t bad! It wasn’t _fun_ by any means but I got to help a lot of people which is, you know, the goal,” she explains. “Why don’t you just wait until I see you and we can talk, okay? Why exactly did you bail on me today?”

“ _I have a really good excuse, I promise! In fact_ ,” Octavia trails off and something in Clarke dreads the rest of the sentence, “ _why don’t you and Bellamy meet me at the Dropship and we can still see each other today?_ ”

“Uh,” Clarke stalls, glancing over at Bellamy and wishing he had heard the suggestion, “I don’t know if your brother wants to be my taxi all day, Octavia.” Bellamy glances over, brow furrowed in confusion and Clarke sighs, placing a hand over the speaker on the phone.

“She wants us to meet her at the Dropship,” she murmurs and Bellamy sighs, shakes his head, and then shrugs. That was not the reaction she was hoping for but she _does_ really want to see Octavia. Plus, where there is Octavia and alcohol, there is usually a few of her other friends.

“Oh, I guess he’s fine with it. We’ll see you in a little while, then,” Clarke tells her. They exchange a goodbyes and hang up. Clarke is smirking at Bellamy the whole time and once she lowers the phone he finally snaps.

“What?”

“You’re just still such a sucker for her,” she explains with a shrug, admitting, “it’s cute.” He rolls his eyes and switches lanes to turn further away from her apartment and towards the bar.

“ _I need you,” Clarke nearly cries, phone cradled to her ear as she tries to pull herself together._

“ _What? Clarke? What’s going on?” Octavia asks on the other end, muffled noise in the background tells Clarke this isn’t a good time but she doesn’t have the luxury of waiting for Octavia to be free._

“ _It’s gone. I don’t know what happened but it’s just gone.”_

“ _What is?” Octavia asks, her voice hushed._

“ _My paper!” Clarke shouts, the tears in her eyes from exhaustion threatening to spill over. There’s some shuffling on the other end, the sound of a door closing, and the background noise fades almost entirely._

“ _Okay, Clarke, slow down. Try to breathe. Tell me what happened.”_

“ _I was finishing my last final, I had like fifty words to go, and it just disappeared! I mean, I know I must have hit something but I don’t know what and I don’t know how to get it back and it wasn’t backed up because I’m an idiot!” At this point, Clarke has given up trying to hit random combinations of keys in hopes that the near fifteen hundred words on the fucking fall of the Romanoff family will reappear. Instead, she’s just staring at the blank screen in front of her and trying to remember what it feels like to breathe normally. She’s not even sure what Octavia of all people can do for her but Monty and Raven have both headed off for break and they’re who she’d normally go to with a technical issue._

“ _Okay, Clarke, babe,” Octavia sighs and Clarke feels suddenly terrible for bugging her with her mental breakdown, “I’m at work. But I’ll send someone, okay? We’ll fix it.” Clarke doesn’t have to ask to know who someone is but she’s too far gone in her panic to tell Octavia what a terrible idea that is._

_Bellamy shows up at her door less than a half an hour later and Clarke immediately starts talking when she opens the door, leaving it open for him to follow her into the dorm room as she heads back towards the laptop. He seems confused for a minute but follows eventually, listening to her panicked explanation and pushing the door closed behind him._

“ _It’s the last thing I have to turn in before I can go home and I don’t have time to start from scratch, this class is required.” Bellamy is already nodding and taking a seat in front of her laptop, staring at it for a minute before he sets in on a bunch of questions she only has vague answers for. It takes twenty minutes and Clarke almost having another panic attack before he figures it out. When the document comes back up, they’ve moved to sit side by side on the floor, leaning against her bed, and Clarke is so excited to see her work she practically throws herself on top of him in thanks._

_And then she remembers that the last time she had seen him she’d been on top of him for an entirely different reason and scrambles off of him. She focuses her breathing to keep her cheeks from going completely red and Bellamy is scratching at the back of his neck._

“ _Do you want me to read it?” He asks after a minute and Clarke raises an eyebrow._

“ _Why?”_

“ _Because,” he sighs like she’s purposely being difficult, “I do have a degree in history. I could make sure everything is sound.” Clarke considers it for a minute before nodding, sliding the laptop back onto his lap._

“ _Sure. I have the conclusion paragraph to still write, maybe you could help me with it if everything else is good.” He nods and scrolls to the top of the document, starting on the writing. Clarke leaves to get them coffee and by the time she comes back he’s finishing up. He’s pulled out one of her notebooks and is scribbling notes as he reads. She notices with some distress that he’s written quite a bit._

“ _You’re a fast reader,” she comments, handing him one of the paper cups and taking her seat next to him. He looks up from where he’s finishing a note and shrugs._

“ _I live for this stuff,” he admits without shame and she takes a moment to admire him as he finishes reading. No one would really peg Bellamy Blake as a total history nerd but he owned it in a surprisingly refreshing way. He was passionate about his interest and refused to be shy about it._

_Once he finishes, he shows his notes to her. Most of them are positive but some do involve going back to certain paragraphs and fixing facts she’d gotten wrong. All in all, she’s grateful for his help, especially when she finishes the conclusion paragraph and immediately e-mails it to her professor. Leaving her home free. She sighs and leans her head back to look up at the ceiling._

“ _Now, I can actually make it out of here when I’d planned tomorrow.” Bellamy chuckles and she can feel the movement as he shakes his head. She rolls hers against the mattress to look at him from the corner of her eye._

“ _You and your plans,” he says but it’s not derisive the way she’d expect. It’s almost fond and something in her warms at the thought. Bellamy Blake is fond of her. She tries not to think about her next move, just leans over and kisses him firmly. He responds almost immediately and it shouldn’t surprise her that it escalates the way it does. Suddenly she is on top of him, straddling his hips._

“ _We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” she quips against his mouth and he pulls away to look up at her, pushing her hair behind her ear._

“ _Clarke, what are we doing?” He asks quietly and she’s already dipping her mouth back down to his when she answers._

“ _Not planning.”_

When they reach the bar, it’s still well before the usual drinking time but it’s a Saturday so she’s hardly going to judge Octavia – especially when she’s kind of craving a vodka cranberry herself. Octavia spots them the moment they enter and Clarke is still adjusting to the sudden change in lighting when the other woman throws her arms around her neck and pulls her in for a tight hug. Clarke laughs and they sway on the spot and she wraps her arms around Octavia’s back, hugging her just as fiercely.

Once they let go, Octavia gives Bellamy a quick hug as well and leads them towards her table. Clarke doesn’t recognize the man already sitting at the table, nursing a bottled beer. Octavia grabs her own from the table and takes a swig before introducing him. Clarke doesn’t let her get the chance, holding a hand out to him.

“Hi,” she smiles, “you must be Really Good Excuse.” The man looks to Octavia, confused, who shoots Clarke a dry look.

“Clarke, this is Lincoln,” she introduces. “Lincoln, this is my extremely unfunny friend Clarke.” Clarke smirks at Octavia but Lincoln takes her still outstretched hand and shakes it, unfazed by her teasing.

“It’s good to meet you, Clarke, I’ve heard plenty about you.” Clarke nods with a smile but shoots Octavia another look. They’d spoken at least twice a week for the entire year she was gone and somehow Octavia had gotten away with never mentioning Lincoln. She looks around for Bellamy to see his reaction to this new person in Octavia’s life and finds him heading back towards them from the bar. A short glass filled with a red liquid in one hand and a beer in the other.

“Vodka cranberry,” he tells her, handing her the short glass. She smiles gratefully and looks down at the drink. Bellamy greets Lincoln with only a mild amount of coldness and takes the seat next to him while Octavia pulls Clarke down next to her. She nurses her drink while they catch up and learns Octavia and Lincoln have been seeing each other for the better part of two months. Clarke is sharing a story of another doctor she’d worked with in South America when Raven shows up. Clarke doesn’t notice her until she leans against their table, scoops up her drink, and finishes it in one go.

“You don’t call, you don’t write,” she says drolly as Clarke glares at her for stealing her drink. The two break the sober act quickly and grin at each other.

“I missed you too, Raven,” Clarke teases, standing up for a quick hug. “But you owe me another drink.” Raven barks a laugh and nods. She heads to the bar and immediately ducks behind it, getting swatted at by the man tending the bar as she opens two beers. Clarke watches in amused confusion.

“They’re not-so-secretly doing it,” Octavia explains in a stage whisper, shrugging her shoulders when Clarke looks over but not elaborating further. Clarke chews lightly on her lower lip as Raven comes back, placing one of the beers in front of her. She quickly snatches it up and takes a swig.

When she’d accepted the offer to work in South America for a year, she’d been eager to get as far away as she could. It hadn’t occurred to her that she’d miss out on an entire year of her friends’ lives. It makes her stomach churn in a way that is definitely upsetting the vodka. She tries not to think about it but every time one of them starts a story it’s clearly for her benefit because everyone else has heard it and has their own input. Even Bellamy seems much more comfortable here than he’s seemed since he’d picked her up at the airport.

She excuses herself to the bathroom about twenty minutes after Raven shows up, slipping out the familiar backdoor for some air. It’s usually where the workers come on their breaks to get some sunlight, have a cigarette, sneak a drink. It doesn’t surprise her when she hears the door open behind her less than a minute later.

“It’s so weird,” she murmurs, “it’s the same place but everything’s different.”

“A year’ll do that,” Bellamy responds, leaning back against the brick wall of the bar. She turns halfway around to look at him. Another time and she’d be pressing him against the brick wall on his break, her hands crawling up his back while he breathily reminded her how short his break was. She turns away.

“Do you regret it?” He asks eventually and she doesn’t know which part of it all he means. “Going, I mean.” She shrugs.

“I didn’t. The whole time I was there it felt like the right decision, I got to help people who needed it. But now it feels like I’ve missed so much.” He doesn’t respond for a long time and she prepares to head back inside. She turns and catches him watching her.

“Clarke, you did something amazing this past year,” he says suddenly. “Your friends didn’t move on without you, they’re still right here.” She nods and heads for the door, tugging it open. He hasn’t moved to follow her yet and she’s prepared to give him a minute alone.

“Did you move on without me?” She asks before she can stop herself. He looks over at her and she gives a chuckle, dipping her head. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that.” She continues through the door but doesn’t miss his quiet ‘no’ in response.

She drops back into her seat heavily and takes a long drink from her beer, tuning into the middle of Octavia’s story. At the end of it, she swings her head around to look at Clarke.

“Hey, does your mom know your back?” She asks and Clarke frowns, the question catching her off guard. She shrugs, trying to seem nonchalant.

“Uh, no. I don’t think so. I haven’t talked to her in a while.” She ignores Raven’s knowing look. They both know exactly when the last time Clarke spoke to her mom was.

“ _Don’t take this the wrong way,” Bellamy grumps as he attempts to straighten his tie, “but I hate dinner with your mom.” Clarke grimaces and steps up to him, loosening the tie to pull it over his head. He sighs and ducks out of it. Clarke focuses on untying the knot in her hand._

“ _No one likes dinner with my mom, Bellamy,” she reminds him and he nods. “No tie, okay? You look fine without it.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. She tosses the tie onto his bed and catches his hands in hers as they drop to his sides._

“ _Hey,” she murmurs, “it’s gonna be fine, okay? It always is.” He nods but doesn’t look convinced even as he ducks down to peck her lightly on the lips._

“ _I just have a bad feeling about tonight.” She doesn’t tell him she’s been feeling the same way since she woke up that morning or that the anxiety had kept her from eating all day. Instead she squeezes his hands encouragingly and turns back to finishing pinning her hair up. She can see Bellamy drop down on his bed behind her in the mirror and she tries to shake the urge to crawl under the sheets with him and forget her mom until next month. Bellamy usually finds ways out of the monthly dinners and Clarke usually lets him, even when the excuses are piss poor, but he’d promised to go to this one with her and wasn’t the type to back out on her. She appreciated the loyalty and always missed his support during the meals with her mom._

_It wasn’t that Clarke didn’t love her mom, they were just… complicated. They’d never really seen eye to eye but after Clarke’s dad had passed away a few years back they’re relationship had grown even more strained. When Clarke had finished school, Abby had insisted on monthly dinners at the least so she didn’t miss anything important in her daughter’s life. Clarke appreciated the effort but the dinners were usually pretty draining._

_She finishes and turns back to Bellamy, leaning down to kiss him again. His hand lands carefully on the side of her face, mindful of her hair and she smiles against his mouth at the gesture. She pulls back, wiping any lip gloss traces from his lips._

“ _You ready to get this over with?” Bellamy responds with a slightly subdued grin and nods, standing and waving her towards the door._

_Abby lives outside the city in the large house Clarke had grown up in. It’s typical to Clarke but she knows Bellamy finds it overwhelming every time they visit. She doesn’t like reminders of their class differences because she knows how sensitive he can be about it._

_Dinner is slightly more crowded than Clarke had been expecting – and she knows Abby is surprised at Bellamy’s presence – but otherwise it’s not bad. They get through dinner without any hiccups on their end. Marcus Kane does nearly drop an entire bottle of wine while having a heated discussion about God knows what with Thelonius Jaha. Wells keeps shooting Clarke and Bellamy sarcastic looks as either side debates and Clarke has to bite her tongue to keep from laughing at him. She knows Bellamy’s nerves are still frayed but she thinks he’s relaxing._

_It isn’t until after dinner that everything goes to hell._

_Clarke has left Wells and Bellamy in the living room to help her mom in the kitchen. She’s rinsing dishes and handing them off to Abby to slide into the dishwasher._

“ _Dinner was nice tonight,” she says lightly as she finishes up. Abby nods as Clarke turns to lean back against the sink, careful not to get any water spots on her white dress._

“ _I wasn’t really expecting Bellamy,” Abby comments, “that was a surprise.” Clarke narrows her eyes but doesn’t point out that she hadn’t added the word ‘nice’ into that sentence._

“ _Yeah, well, he didn’t have to work tonight for once so I asked him to come along. He was excited to see you again,” she lies as Abby closes the dishwasher door and starts it. “That’s all right, isn’t it? That I brought him?”_

“ _Oh, yes, of course! I just wasn’t sure how things were going with the two of you, you know, he hadn’t been here in a while.”_

“ _Like I said, he’s been really busy with work,” Clarke explains and her mom nods slowly._

“ _Right,” she drawls, “the bar.” Clarke can feel her blood heating at the tone of voice because she knows exactly where this conversation is going and, honestly, she’d thought they were done having it._

“ _Mom, don’t.” Abby sighs dramatically and Clarke has to stop herself from rolling her eyes at the older woman’s acting._

“ _I’m just worried about you, Clarke,” Abby tells her, her hand falling on Clarke’s upper arm, rubbing lightly against the material of her dress._

“ _Worried about what, exactly? Bellamy and I are great!”_

“ _Yes but, Clarke, you have to think about your future. You’re brilliant, sweetie, and you’re going places-“ Clarke cuts her off, pulling away from her touch._

“ _And what? Bellamy isn’t?” This time Abby’s sigh gives the impression that Clarke is mishearing her but Clarke is pretty sure she’s hearing perfectly._

“ _I didn’t say that.” Clarke scoffs and Abby presses on, “But what is he doing, Clarke? Does he have any future plans? Do they involve you?”_

“ _It’s not really your business,” Clarke bites back._

“ _It’s my business because I’m your mother and I love you! You deserve whatever opportunities life gives you and if you’re with someone that’s holding you back-“_

“ _I’m not!”_

“ _If you are,” Abby continues, infuriatingly calm, “that may not be fair to you. I mean, take Wells for example, he’s already on track to becoming partner at his firm.”_

“ _Wells?!” Clarke has to check her volume, remembering they’re not exactly having this conversation alone. “Is that what this sudden dinner party was about? You thought I’d come without Bellamy and Wells and I would – what? Rekindle our three week high school relationship?” She doesn’t give Abby a chance to respond, turning and leaving the kitchen. She heads into the living room, the sound of Abby’s heels on the hardwood following her down the hall, and grabs her purse and Bellamy’s hand._

“ _Bellamy and I have to go,” she offers lamely to the other guests, not caring enough for civil goodbyes. Her mom is standing in the doorway she’d just come from and Clarke all but drags Bellamy in the opposite direction to the front door where his truck is parked in the driveway._

“ _Always a pleasure,” she hears Bellamy mumble to the other guests without much enthusiasm, taking his cue from her._

They’ve been in the bar for a little over an hour when Clarke has to stifle a large yawn and the party decides it’s time to break it up. Lincoln and Octavia are discussing dinner options and Raven makes Clarke promise to call her as soon as she wakes up tomorrow so they can make plans to get together again and really catch up. It isn’t until she’s following Bellamy back to his car that she realizes she could have asked Raven for a ride home and let Bellamy off the hook. He didn’t complain though so she doesn’t dwell on it.

“Are you feeling better?” Bellamy asks eventually. She recognizes the blocks they pass and knows they’re nearing her apartment building. She nods slowly.

“Yeah, just tired from the trip.” He nods in understanding and Clarke bites down on her lip, tries not to think about the last time he’d driven her back to her apartment, a heavy silence covering them then, too.

“ _So, dinner was nice,” Bellamy offers dryly while Clarke sulks against the car door. She groans and starts pulling pins from her hair, tossing them into the cup holder until her hair is hanging around her shoulders in loose waves. Bellamy lets her continue the silence until she’s done, glancing at her every few seconds. He doesn’t press it until they reach a red light._

“ _Seriously, Clarke, are you gonna tell me what happened?” Clarke swallows and avoids his eyes. She doesn’t like lying to Bellamy but she can’t see how the truth will help in this instance. She knows her mom’s words will only make him self-conscious and bitter and she doesn’t want to let her mom get into his head like that._

“ _It was just my mom being herself,” she offers, watching the teenagers on the street adjusting their hair and clothes as they headed towards the club on the corner. She could see their youth from a mile away and any self-respecting bouncer would turn them away at the door. “You know how she can get.”_

“ _Yeah, I know that she doesn’t like me, Clarke,” Bellamy tells her quietly and she glances over at him. “You don’t have to protect me from that.” Clarke sucks in a breath as the light changes colors and he focuses his attention on turning right._

“ _It’s not that, Bellamy,” she tries._

“ _She thinks I’m not good enough for you.”_

“ _She’s wrong,” Clarke sighs, leaning her head against the cool window. The spring is steadily warming up but the nights are still cool enough to warrants jackets and boots._

“ _Is she?” Her head snaps up and she stares at him for a full twenty seconds before she even manages to respond._

“ _Are you serious right now?”_

“ _Well,” he huffs like he’s letting something off his chest while hers is steadily constricting, “you and I both know you’re built to help people, to do something amazing. I’m not even sure what I’m built for.” He shrugs like it’s not a big deal but his knuckles glow white where he grips the steering wheel and she’s sitting in her seat so she’s completely turned to face him, studying his profile, trying to decide if he actually believes it._

“ _You’re meant for something amazing too, Bell,” she assures him quietly but he doesn’t even look over at her as he scoffs._

“ _I’m a bartender.”_

“ _You could be more than a bartender,” she counters and he groans._

“ _Can we not do this again?”_

“ _I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Bellamy, I’m just telling you if you want to do more you can! If you want to be a bartender, that’s great too! Either way, I’ll be there,” she insists. It goes quiet for a bit and she would think she’d won if she couldn’t see the storm brewing inside him. She thinks of hurricanes named after people and something in her sinks when she realizes she’s probably going to drown in this one._

“ _Maybe you shouldn’t be,” he murmurs._

“ _What?”_

“ _I just mean- look, I love you, Clarke, but maybe you shouldn’t be just sticking around. If I’m dragging you down or holding you back, you owe it to yourself to move forward without me.”_

“ _Bellamy, you’re not-“_

“ _I saw the invitation you got to work in South America for a year.” She sucks in a breath and he pulls up to the curb in front of her apartment building. “You should go.”_

“ _What if I don’t want to go?” She snaps and he rolls his eyes._

“ _I know you. You want to go.” He’s not wrong but she had almost immediately dismissed the invitation. How could she put her life on hold for a year? She had friends and a job and Bellamy. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been thinking about it but not as an actual possibility. Just a fantasy. Bellamy turns in his seat to face her and reaches over, laying his hand over hers._

“ _Clarke,” he sighs._

“Clarke, hey.” Clarke jolts as Bellamy’s hand lands on hers. He takes it the wrong way and jerks his hand away immediately as she realizes they’re sitting in front of her apartment again. She looks back at Bellamy and tries to smile apologetically.

“Sorry,” she murmurs, “I’d zoned out.” He nods and looks behind them in the direction of the trunk.

“Let’s get your stuff,” he offers and she nods, pushing open the car door and stepping out. She straightens up on the sidewalk and stares up at her apartment for the first time in a year, taking a deep breath. She’d convinced her landlord to keep it for her by offering to continue to pay rent and letting him cut off utilities to the space. Bellamy’s pulling her bags out of the trunk and she tries to get herself back to the present as she walks to the back of the car to help him. He gives her one bag and takes the other himself.

“Oh, you don’t have to…,” she trails off at his raised eyebrow and nods. “Right. Wasting my breath.” He chuckles and shakes his head, closing the trunk. Clarke leads the way up to her apartment, the elevator ride excruciatingly slow for the fact that she lives on the fifth floor.

She has to dig her keys out of one of the bags and it takes them some time to get into the apartment, Bellamy watching in amusement as she locates the keys with a joyous whoop and pushes the door open.

“Home sweet home,” she grins, waving him inside. He leads the way and she switches the lights on as she closes the door behind her, dropping her bag next to it and taking in the sight of her apartment. She makes a mental list of things she’ll need to get done. She’d obviously had to clean her fridge out so she’ll need to go grocery shopping, do some laundry, crack a window and get the stale air out. She starts with that, crossing to one of the windows on the opposite wall and sliding it open. Bellamy lingers by the couch where he’s deposited her bag.

“Thanks for the help today,” she offers as she turns to him with a small smile. He nods before he seems to remember something and pulls his messenger bag off his shoulder, digging through it.

“I almost forgot. I have something for you.”

“Really?” Her face brightens and she moves towards him.

“Relax, Princess, it’s not diamonds,” he informs her dryly and she rolls her eyes.

“Ha ha. What is it?” She presses, leaning over his shoulder as he bends over the couch and digs through the bag. Eventually he pulls out a plain paper bag. She eyes it as he hands it over. Lifting it up to her ear to shake it jokingly. He smirks at her and she finally gives in, sliding her hand in and pulling out a book. She flips it around in her hands.

“ _The Odyssey_?” She asks, raising an eyebrow. He lifts a hand, rubs at the back of his neck.

“Yeah, I finally got around to reading it again a few months ago and,” he shrugs, “I thought about how we’d talked about how you’d never read it.” She looks down at the paper back in her hands, recognizes the folds of a well-used book, and opens it, flipping the pages quickly. She catches the telltale signs of pencil markings in the margins and smiles to herself.

“I left you some notes, too,” he adds when he realizes she’s noticed. She frowns down at the book before placing it carefully on her coffee table. She can tell Bellamy is watching her movements. Before she can over think it, she taking another step towards him and using his shoulder for leverage as she reaches up on her toes and kisses him.

“ _Hey, it’s me… again,” Clarke sighs, switching the phone to her other ear. “God this is getting pathetic so I swear this is my last message. I don’t know if Octavia told you or not but I took that job in South America.” She stops and drops down on her bed. Her closet has been separated into groups and looks so empty. She considers her next words carefully._

“ _I was just kind of hoping to see you before I leave,” she admits, “and I know you broke up with me so it’s lame of me to ask that but… Bellamy, you’re my best friend, okay? Please at least call me back. I leave in a week.” She hangs up and flops back on her bed. It’s been almost two months since she last saw Bellamy, when he’d broken up with her in his truck in front of her apartment. It’d been full of self-loathing and the idea that she deserved better just because her mom had made a mess of things at dinner. She had been so sure it wouldn’t last, had waited to hear from him, hoped he’d call or show up and tell her it was all a mistake and he loved her and was being an idiot. When he didn’t, she’d started calling him and felt like a total fool for it._

_But, well, she had to at least try._

_Except a month went by and the deadline for the job was coming up. So, she’d called and accepted it, bought a plane ticket, got everything ready for her to leave for a year. But she couldn’t shake Bellamy. And now she was just waiting pathetically by the phone for her ex-boyfriend to call her._

She’s straddling him on her couch, heat pooling her belly and thoughts clogging her head, and she has to pull back because she just has to know.

“Why didn’t you call me back?” She asks, sitting back on his thighs and avoiding his eyes. He sighs, shifting underneath and she knows she doesn’t need to elaborate on what she means.

“Honestly, because of this.” He motions to their current situation and Clarke’s eyes go wide. She rushes to climb off of him but he grips her hips, keeping her in place and trying to make her meet his eyes.

“No, fuck, not that this is bad I just mean,” he huffs and runs a hand through his hair, “I’m shit at resisting you, Clarke, and if I had called you back I would have begged you to stay, to stay with me. And that wouldn’t have been fair, not when I’d told you to go in the first place.” She bites her lip and watches him. His thumbs rub slow circles into her skin.

It takes more willpower than she’s willing to admit, but she climbs off of his lap, circling the coffee table to put it between them. She stares hard at the book on the table as he stands from the couch as well, disheveled and tense. She wants to say something, tell him she wished he’d called, that she doesn’t know if she’d have stayed for him but she wishes he’d asked. She can’t find her voice though.

“I should go,” he says instead and it feels wrong. Her head is spinning and her mouth tastes like cheap beer and Bellamy. She nods instead of asking him to stay. He gathers his bag and heads for the door. He hesitates once the door is open.

“Just,” he pauses, sighs, “just read the book, all right?” She frowns and grabs the book off the table as the door clicks shut behind him. She flips through it vaguely, glancing halfheartedly at the notes left there. It isn’t until she flips back to the cover page that she sees the inscription.

 _Princess,_  
I hope your journey went better than Odysseus’.  
Sorry for being an idiot.  
Bellamy

She groans and tosses the book back on the table, circling it to flop down on the couch. She has no delusions about not being in love with him anymore, had spent every night of the past year trying not to think about him while she fell asleep. It was hard to doubt he still felt the same for her but it seemed ridiculous to dive back in after a year, didn’t it? She couldn’t be sure if any of their issues were solved or could be solved. It was impractical to throw herself back into that relationship.

“Son of a bitch,” she growls, turning and curling into the couch, unpacking and settling in be damned. Tomorrow she would track down her super and call the hospital and Raven. She'd go grocery shopping and iron the wrinkles from her clothes.

Bellamy Blake be damned.

“ _Bellamy, you're being weird.” He raises an eyebrow at the statement but even that seems off and she can't figure him out. He'd been acting strange since he'd picked her up and she could usually read him pretty easily but she had no idea what was going on and, honestly, it was stressing her out._

“ _How's that, Princess?” She narrows her eyes at the nickname. He'd been slowly using it less and less since they'd started actually labeling what they were doing as dating even though she was begrudgingly getting used to it. It feels like a defense tactic this time and that puts her even more on edge. The word hadn't held the intended malice it originally had in a long time but it still doesn't feel exactly right._

“ _Come on, Blake,” she huffs exasperatedly, rolling her eyes, “I know you. So, I also know that you know that you've been acting weird all night. You freaked out on that poor hostess for having no available seating, you were downright rude to the take out guy, and you did nothing but sulk the whole way here. Time to cowboy up and tell me what's going on.” Bellamy sighs and rubs at the back of his neck with the hand not holding the brown paper bag with their Mexican take out in it. He motions vaguely towards the door to her dorm room._

“ _Can we just go inside first, at least?” He implores and Clarke gives in, nodding and unlocking the door. Her roommate had said something about a concert and crashing at a friend's place off campus so Clarke knows they'll have the room to themselves at least until the following afternoon._

_She waits until the food is spread out over the floor rug to press him on it again. She's sitting close enough that their arms brush but Bellamy has barely made a move to touch her all evening. He'd gently guided her towards the restaurant with a hand on her back and kissed her sweetly at the door when he'd picked her up but it had all been very public appropriate which, she was mildly loathe to admit, was simply not their style. Everything between them since the first time she'd kissed him without thinking and nearly ruined everything had been passionate and fervent and she'd never really had a relationship like that before. She kind of didn't want to see it cool down._

“ _Okay, we're inside, we have food, now,” she turns to him fully but he's stubbornly avoiding her eyes, “what is going on?” He's stabbing a fork into the container of rice and beans and she groans, shoving his shoulder a little harder than necessary. God, he was such a baby sometimes!_

“ _Hey,” he barks, putting down the food to rub at his arm._

“ _Will you please just tell me what's wrong so we can fix it or move past it or whatever!”_

“ _Fine, okay, it's just,” he hesitates, going back to avoiding her eyes, “I wanted tonight to be perfect, okay?” She raises an eyebrow._

“ _What's so special about tonight?” He goes back to assaulting the container of food at her question and, if he wasn't in such a clearly piss poor mood, she'd tease him for pouting._

“ _Nothing,” he grunts._

“ _Jesus, Bellamy! Just talk to me. What was so special about tonight?” She tries again, trying not to get too agitated but Bellamy had always been good at agitating her in all the best and worst ways. She musters up all her patience and waits, though, because if there's one thing she knows about Bellamy it's that pushing too hard just makes him close up._

“ _It was just supposed to be the perfect date, okay?” He says eventually, letting out a sigh and pushing the food away from him. She's never heard Bellamy – passionate and convincing to an almost scary degree Bellamy – struggle so much for words._

“ _It was supposed to be the right time for me to tell you that, you know,” he lets out a harsh breath and finally makes eye contact, “that I love you.” Clarke's eyes widen and he smirks at her gently, the weight of the words he'd needed to say lifting visibly off his shoulders. Before she can get the proper response out, the laughter in her chest bubbles up and out of her mouth and Clarke is laughing into her palm as Bellamy's smirk falls._

“ _And you're laughing,” he comments and Clarke shakes her head._

“ _No, no,” she insists as she calms down, “it's not that! I just- I sort of thought you were trying to break up with me in the worst way possible.” This time it's Bellamy whose eyes widen and he lets out a chuckle of his own._

“ _Aw, come on, Clarke, who else could put up with my shit?”_

“ _Romantic,” she replies drolly, rolling her eyes. He turns serious again suddenly though, surprising her as his eyes take on that intensity she's still getting used to._

“ _Look, it's not like you have to say it back, though, okay? I've just know for a while, well, pretty much since this all started and I couldn't take not telling you anymore.” Clarke shakes her head, leaning forward and pressing her lips to his firmly._

“ _God, you're an idiot,” she breathes when she pulls only slightly away from him, “of course I love you, too.” He captures her lips again and she presses him back against the floor, avoiding the containers of food._

“ _Our food's gonna get cold,” he points out, pulling away, and Clarke raises an eyebrow._

“ _That's what you're worried about getting cold right now?” He seems to mull this over for a second._

“ _You're right, forget it.”_

Clarke doesn't see Bellamy again for another week. Not that she's been actively avoiding him but coming back from a year out of the country means a lot of work. She'd been so busy with work and resettling in that it had taken her two days to finally be able to spend some time with Raven and she'd only finished about a sixth of _the Odyssey._ The only reason she even ends up running into him is because Octavia insists Clarke come over to her apartment for coffee and catching up and she isn't really one to take no for an answer.

Clarke is finishing reiterating a story she knows she'd told Octavia over the phone but hadn't really been able to go into great detail about the family that she had stayed with because she felt odd talking about them over the phone while using their guest room. Even if it was all positive and they'd been nothing but wonderful to her.

“But you know all this,” she finishes, narrowing her eyes at the other woman. “What I don't know is how we could have talked on the phone at least twice a week for a year and you never mentioned a new guy.” Octavia shrugs and goes to open her mouth when her phone rings.

“Saved by the bell,” Clarke comments, standing up to refill her coffee mug as Octavia answers. She comes back for the end of the conversation.

“Well, I kind of have company.” Clarke frowns as Octavia eyes her worriedly before rolling her eyes at whatever the person on the other line is saying. “Then come inside, you creep!” Octavia hangs up without waiting for a response and Clarke raises her eyebrows. She puts it all together as Octavia's apartment door opens. Octavia is looking at her apologetically as Bellamy pushes the door closed behind him. Clarke tries her best to appear unaffected as she drops back into her seat and Octavia stands to meet her brother.

“God, you're such a mess, I swear to God,” she admonishes as Bellamy frowns and holds out his arm for her inspection. Even from her seat across the room, Clarke can see the long tear in the sleeve of his pale blue dress shirt.

“Can you fix it or not?” He asks gruffly, glaring at his sister who shrugs.

“Yeah, lucky you just split the seam,” she drops his arm and waves in Clarke's direction. “Go. Sit. It'll take me a minute.” Bellamy had already unbuttoned the shirt so he tugs it off and hands it to Octavia who runs off towards her bedroom. He straightens out the white undershirt he's now wearing and turns to sit, faltering when he spots Clarke.

“Oh,” he says and Clarke grimaces at the uncomfortable greeting, “hey.” She waves back, lifting her mug to her lips to keep her mouth busy until he's joined her at the table.

“Did you want some coffee?” She offers and he shakes his head.

“Nah, I can't stay and the way today is going I'll probably spill it.” Clarke smothers a smile behind her hand as he glares at her halfheartedly. “It's not funny.” Clarke forces the smile away and shakes her head very seriously which just makes Bellamy have to bite back his own grin. This is probably her first mistake, letting it get too comfortable between them, too familiar.

“What's with the date shirt, anyway?” The words slip out before she can remind herself that this is a bad idea. A week ago she was straddling him on her couch and now she's fishing for information on his love life. They're treading dangerous waters.

“Date shirt?” He asks, raising an eyebrow. She realizes she could just let it go, say it's nothing and wait for Octavia to come back. But she's never really been good at backing down.

“Yeah, whenever we went somewhere really nice or you wanted to be fancy on a date, you wore the blue shirt,” she explains with a shrug, swirling her coffee around her mug. She doesn't mention he'd worn that shirt on their first date or the night he told her he loved her for the first time. She doesn't mention she'd taken weird satisfaction in being the one wearing it the next morning as he watched her with hooded eyes.

“Maybe it's just my only nice shirt,” he comments with a smirk and she gives him a wry look. He shakes his head and presses on, “It's not a date. I have a meeting at work today.” Clarke nods and focuses on her coffee again but she can still feel Bellamy's eyes on her. She hears the sound of Octavia coming back down the hallway before he speaks.

“There's no one else, Clarke,” he says quietly and she looks up but before she can respond, Octavia is bustling back into the room, shoving the shirt in Bellamy's arms and telling him to be careful with the sleeve. She makes some offhanded comment about him buying a new shirt and Clarke only just stops herself from telling him not to. Bellamy is gone before Clarke can even think of how to respond to his words and Octavia is sitting back down in his vacant seat and explaining that she'd met Lincoln two months ago.

Clarke decides to process later and focus on her friend's happiness.

She spends the night off work trying to read the book he'd given her. She finds herself focusing more on Bellamy's scribbled comments than on the actual story. The stanzas are slow and hard on her already shaky concentration. Before she can think much of it, she grabs her phone and texts Bellamy.

_**This is your favorite book? It's so slow!** _

She tries not to wait for him to respond but only makes it about two more paragraphs by the time her phone chimes with his reply.

_**Gets better trust me ;)** _

She rolls her eyes, resists the urge to respond with something cheesy like 'always' or 'you know I do'. Tossing her phone to the other side of the couch she tries to really focus on the book. About a half hour later, she's only made it through three pages and all the thoughts in her mind are threatening to make her head explode. She grabs her phone again and types out a hurried text.

_**Are you busy? Can we meet?** _

This time she doesn't bother pretending not to be counting the seconds until he responds. It takes him less time than before and she thinks he must be able to read her urgency.

_**Dropship in twenty?** _

The situation is causing too much stress, it had been one thing when he was on the other side of the continent and there was nothing she could do to fix it or get closure or whatever but now that she's back it feels like they're just dancing around an inevitable explosion. She knows twenty minutes is how long it takes to get from his apartment to the bar if traffic is good – which for New York means moderately easy to drive through. She knows she can walk to the bar from her apartment in fifteen minutes so she changes out of her sweatpants and heads out.

The walk gives her time to think about what exactly she even wants to say to Bellamy. He'd always been better at words than her, giving passionate speeches and well thought out arguments. It was easy to imagine he'd be a great lecturer. By the time she reaches the bar, she still has no idea what she wants to say to him. It seems too simple to expect everything to just work out because they love each other. That's not real life, she knows, but God she wishes it could be. They've always had so much to work through – Bellamy's insecurities, her issues with intimacy – she doesn't know why she'd even want to try again.

“Waiting for me?” She hears behind her and turns to see Bellamy heading towards her, all familiar smirk and leather jacket, and she remembers. There's really no one else for her either. She can't stop herself from smiling at him, even as the anxiety in her chest continues to chew at her.

“What? No date shirt?” She asks teasingly as he draws closer. “I'm a little hurt here, Bellamy.”

“Is that what this is? A date?” He raises an eyebrow and she knows he's trying to seem casual but he's failing spectacularly. She decides to throw him a bone anyway.

“That depends. Are you gonna buy me a drink or what?” She doesn't know if they can solve any of their problems or if she's setting them both up for another round of heartbreak but he's grinning at her and there's some sort of promise in it so she figures they can take it a step at a time.

He spreads his arm towards the door to the bar with a sweeping motion, “After you, Princess.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this story was enjoyable! I wanted to get it up before the finale because I don't know what's going to happen between me and this show after the finale, so I apologize for any mistakes a quick read through missed. Let me know in the comments!
> 
> \--  
>  **A special note for anyone who read/commented on i don't wanna live like this. (i don't wanna die.)**
> 
> I got such a wonderful response to my first fic for this fandom and I'm working on forming actual responses to all the really lovely comments I've gotten - something better than "asasjda no shush you're too perfect for this world!!" - but in the meantime, if you read and responded to that fic, just know you are an absolute rockstar and I love you!!


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